"We are going to land," the machine said, and, as before, began a rapid series of uncertain noises. "We have landed," it said at last.
The lock slid open. Again the void. Where is it? Parsons asked silently. Has it gone? He could do nothing but sit, strapped to his chair. Please, he prayed. Don't go away.
In the entrance lock an opaque surface dropped into place, blocking the sight of stars.
"Help," Parsons shouted. His voice rebounded deafeningly in his helmet.
A man appeared, wearing a helmet that made him look like a giant frog. Without hesitation he sprinted toward Parsons. A second man followed him. Expertly obviously knowing exactly to do, they began cutting through the straps that held him to the chair. Sparks from the seared metal showered throughout the ship--and then they had him loose.
"Hurry," one of the men said, touching his helmet against Parsons' to make a medium for his voice. "It's open only a few more minutes."
Parsons, struggling painfully up, said, "What went wrong?"
"Nothing," the man said, helping him. The other holding what Parsons recognized as a weapon, prowled about the ship watchfully. "We couldn't show up on Earth," the first man said, as he and Parsons moved toward the lock. "They were waiting--the shupos are good at it. We moved this ship back into time."
On the man's face, Parsons saw the grin of triumph. He and the man started from the ship, through the open lock. Not more than a hundred feet away a larger ship, like a pencil, hung waiting, its lock open, lights gleaming out. A cord connected the two ships.
Beside Parsons, his companion turned back for the other man. "Be careful," the man said to Parsons. "You're not experienced in crossing. Remember, no gravity. You could sail off." He clung to the cable, beckoning to his colleague.
His colleague took a step toward the lock. From the wall of the ship the muzzle of a gun appeared; the muzzle flashed orange, and the man pitched forward on his face. Beside Parsons, his companion gasped. His eyes met Parsons'. For an instant Parsons saw the man's face, distended with fear and comprehension; then the man had lifted a weapon and fired directly at the blank wall of the ship, at the spot where the gun muzzle had appeared.
A blinding pop made Parsons fall back. The helmet of the man beside him burst; bits of helmet cascaded against his own. And, at the same time, the far wall of the ship splintered; a crack formed and material rained in all directions.
Exposed, but obviously already dying, a shupo confronted Parsons. The dwarf figure gyrated slowly, in an almost ritualistic convulsion. The eyes bulged, and then the shupo collapsed. Its damaged body floated and eddied about the ship, mixing with the clouds of particles. Finally it came to rest against the ceiling, head down, arms dangling grotesquely. Blood from the wound in its chest gathered in an elongated ball of glistening, bright crimson that froze, expanded, and, as it drifted against the shupo's leg, broke apart.
In Parson's numbed brain the words that he had so recently heard returned. "The shupos are good at it." Yes, he thought. Very good. The shupo had been aboard all the time. It made no sound. Had not moved. Had gone on waiting. Would it have died there, in the wall, if no one had appeared?
Both men lay dead. The shupo had killed them both.
Beyond the prison ship the pencil-shaped ship still drifted at the end of its cable. Lights still gleamed out. But now it's empty, Parsons realized. They came for me, but too soon; they couldn't avoid the trap.
I wonder who they were.
Will I ever know?
Kneeling down, he started to examine the dead man nearest him. And then he remembered the lock. Any moment it would close--he would be sealed in here, and the ship would start back once more. Abandoning the two dead men he jumped through the lock, grasping at the cable. His leap carried him farther than he had anticipated; for a moment he spun, sweeping away from the two ships, seeing them dwindle away from him. The bitter cold of space licked at him; he felt it seeping into his body. Struggling, he reached out, stretching his arms, fingers . . .
By degrees his body drifted toward the pencil-shaped ship. Suddenly it swept up at him; he smashed against it stunningly, and clung, spread out against its hull. Then, when his mind cleared, he began moving inch-by-inch toward the open entrance.
His fingers touched the cable. He dragged himself down and inside the ship. Warmth from the ship spread around him, and the chill began to depart.
Across the cable-length, at the far end, the entrance lock of the prison ship clicked shut.
Kneeling, Parsons found the origin of the cable. How firmly was it attached? Already, the prison ship's rockets had begun to fire; it was ready to start back. The cable became taut; the prison ship was pulling against it.
In panic, Parsons thought, Do I want to go back? Or should I cut the cable?
But the decision had been made. As the rockets fired, the cable snapped. The police ship, at terrific speed, shot away, became small, and then vanished.
Gone. Back to Earth. Carrying three corpses.
And where was he?
Closing the door by hand--it took considerable effort, but at last he had it in place--Parsons turned to examine the ship into which he had come. The ship that had been intended as his means of rescue, and which, for all practical purposes, had failed.
SEVEN
On all sides of him, meters and controls. The central panel glowed with data.
Parsons seated himself on one of two stools facing the panel. In an ashtray he saw a smoldering cigarette butt. Only a few minutes ago the two men had hurried out of here, across to the prison ship; now they were dead, and now he was here in their place.
He thought, Am I much better off?
The control panel hummed. Dials changed slightly. The man had said, "We moved the ship back in time." How far in time?
But also, it must travel in space. It goes to both dimensions.
Examining the controls, he wondered, Which operates which? He could make out a division on the board, two hemispheres.
Somebody was trying to reach me, he realized. They brought me forward through time, hundreds of years. From my society to theirs. For some purpose. Will I ever know the purpose?
At least I saw them face to face. If only for a moment.
Good God, he thought. I'm lost in space and I'm lost in time. In both dimensions.
Above the hum of the panel he detected an intermittent crackle of static. Now he located the cloth grill of a speaker. A communication system? But connected to what?
Reaching out, he experimentally turned a knob. Nothing appreciable changed. He pressed a button near the edge of the board.
All the dials changed.
Around him the ship trembled. The muffled concussion of jets shook him. We're moving, he thought. Hands swept out clock-faces, counters vanished; no numbers at all showed. A red light winked on, and at once the dials slowed.
Some safety mechanism had come on.
The viewscreen over the controls showed stars. But now one bright dot had become larger. He saw in its color a clear tint of red. A planet. Mars?
Taking a deep, unsteady breath, he once again began experimenting with the controls.
Below him a parched red plain stretched out.
He did not recognize it.
Far to the right--mountains. Cautiously, he tried adjustments. The ship dropped sharply; he managed to steady it until it hung above the sun-cracked land. Corrosion . . . he saw limitless furrows gouged into the baked clay. Nothing moved. No life.
After many failures he managed to land the ship. With care he unbolted the door.
An acrid wind billowed into the ship and around him. He sniffed the smell of age and erosion. But the air, thin and weak, brought a faint trickle of warmth. Now Parsons stepped out onto the crumbling sand; his feet sank and he stumbled.
For the first time in his life he was standing on another planet.
Scanning the sky he made out dim clouds on the horizon. Did he see a bird among them? Black speck that disappeared.
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The silence frightened him.
He began to walk. Beneath his feet, stones broke apart and puffed into particles. No water! Bending, he picked up a handful of sand. Rough against his skin.
To his right, a heap of slag and boulders.
There, in the cold shadows, gray lichens that seemed no more than stains on the rock. He climbed the largest of the boulders. Far off he saw what might have been an artificial construction. The remains of some massive trench cut deep into the desert. So he went that way.
He thought, I'd better not lose sight of the ship.
While he walked he saw his second sign of life. On his wrist, a fly. It danced off and disappeared. Most noxious of all pests, and yet preferable to the dead wastes. This meager life form, awesome and tragic in this context.
Yet surely if a fly could survive, there had to be organic matter.
Possibly on some other part of the planet, a settlement of some kind. The prison colonies--unless he had arrived long before or long after. Once he had mastered the controls of the ship . . .
In the distance, something sparkled.
He started in that direction. At last he came close enough to make out the sight of an unright slab. A marker? Breathless, he went up a slope, sliding in the loose sand.
In the weak, ruddy sunlight he saw before him a granite block set in the sand. Green patina covered it, almost obscuring that which had flashed: a metal plate bolted to the center.
On the plate--writing. Engraved deep into the metal at one time, but now scoured almost smooth. Squatting down, he tried to read. Most of it was obliterated or illegible, but at the top, in larger letters, a word that could still be read:
PARSONS
His own name. Coincidence? He stared at it, unbelieving. Then, pulling off his shirt, he began rubbing away the accumulation of sand and grime. Before his name, another word:
JIM
So there could be no doubt. This plaque, set here in this wasteland, had him as its topic. Into his mind came the mad, eerie notion that perhaps he had become some gigantic figure in history, known to all the planets. A lengendary figure, commemorated in this monument, like some god.
But now, feverishly rubbing with his shirt, he managed to read the smaller engraving beneath. The plaque did not concern him; it was addressed to him. Foolishly, he sat in the sand, brushing at the letters.
The plaque told him how to operate the ship. A manual of instruction.
Each sentence was repeated, apparently to combat the ravages of time. He thought, they must have known that this block would stand here for centuries, perhaps thousands of years. Until I came along.
The shadows, on the far range of mountains, had become longer. Overhead, the sun had begun to decline. The day was ending. Now, the air had lost all warmth. He shivered.
Gazing up at the sky he saw a shape half-lost in the haze. A gray disc sailed beyond the clouds. For a long time he watched it, his heart beating heavily. A moon, crossing the face of this world. Much closer than the Moon he knew; but perhaps its greater size was due to Mars being so much smaller. Shading his eyes against the long rays of the sun, he studied the face of this moon. The worn surface . . .
The moon was Luna.
That had not changed; the pattern on its visible side remained the same. This was not Mars. It was Earth.
Here he stood on his own planet, on the dying, ancient Earth. The waterless last age. It had, like Mars before it, ended in drought and weariness. With only black sand-flies and lichens. And rock. Probably it had been like this a long time, long enough to eradicate most of the remains of the human civilization that once existed. Only this plaque, erected by time travelers like himself; persons in search of him, tracking him down to re-establish the contact that had been lost. They had possibly put up many of these markers here and there.
His name, the final written words. To survive man, when everything else had gone.
At sunset he returned to the ship. Before entering it he paused, taking a last look behind him.
Better this, the night falling, obscuring the plain. He could imagine animals stirring, night insects appearing.
Finally he shut the lock. He snapped on lights; the cabin of the ship filled with pale white, and the control panel glowed red. Overhead the loudspeaker crackled faintly to itself. The semblance, at least, of something alive.
And on the threshold, a creature that had crawled into the ship during his absence. A hard-to-kill form of life. An earwig.
He thought, That may survive everything else. The last to die. He watched this particular earwig crawl under a storage cupboard.
A few will probably still survive, he reflected, when the plaque with my name on it has crumbled to dust.
Seated at the controls he selected the keys which the instructions had described. Then, in the combination given him, he punched out the tape and started the transport feeding.
Dials changed.
Now he had turned control over to them, the people who wanted him. He sat passive as the odd shudder again reached him, and, on the viewing screen, the nocturnal scene jumped. Daylight returned, and, after a time, hues of green and blue to replace the parched red.
Earth reborn, he thought somberly. The desert made fertile once more. Faster and faster the scenes blurred, altered. Thousands of years passing backward, no doubt millions. He could scarcely grasp it. In his attempts to operate the ship he had run out the string entirely; he had gone into the future as far as the ship was capable of carrying him.
Abruptly, the dials ceased their motion.
I'm back, Parsons thought. Reaching out his hand, he touched a switch on the panel. The machinery shut off. He rose and walked to the door of the ship. For a moment he hesitated. And then he unbolted the door and pushed it wide.
A man and woman faced him. Each held a gun pointed at him. He caught a glimpse of a lush green landscape, trees and a building, flowers. The man said, "Parsons?" Golden, hot sunlight streamed down.
"Yes," he said.
"Welcome," the woman said in a husky, throaty voice. But the guns did not lower. "Come out of the ship, Doctor," the woman said.
He did so.
"You found one of those markers?" the man said. "The instructions sent ahead for you?"
Parsons said, "Apparently it had been up a long time."
Going by him, the woman entered the ship. She inspected the meter readings on the panel. "A very long time," she said. To her companion, she said, "Helmar, he went all the way."
"You're lucky it was still usable," the man said.
"Are you going to keep the guns pointed at me?" Parsons said.
The woman came to the doorway behind him and said over his shoulder, "I don't see any shupos. I think it's all right." She had put her gun away already, and now the man did so too.
The man put his hand out; he and Parsons shook.
"Do women shake hands too?" the woman asked, extending her hand. "I hope this doesn't violate a custom of your period."
The man--Helmar--said, "How did the far future strike you?"
"I couldn't take it," Parsons said.
"It's quite depressing," Helmar said. "But remember; it'll be a long time coming, and gradual. And by that time there'll be planets inhabited." Both he and the woman regarded him with expressions of deep emotion. And he, too, felt profoundly moved.
"Care for a drink, Doctor?" the woman asked.
"No," he said. "Thanks." He saw bees at work in nearby vines, and, further along, a row of cypress trees. The man and woman followed after him as he walked in the direction of the trees. Halfway there he halted, taking in deep lungsful of air. The pollen-laden air of midsummer . . . the odors of growing things.
"Time travel works erratically," the woman said. "At least for us. We've had bad luck striving for exactitude. I'm sorry."
"That's all right," Parsons said.
Now he surveyed the man and woman, aware of them more clearly.
The woman was beautiful even beyon
d what he had already seen in this world of youth and robust bodies. This woman was different. Copper-colored skin that shone in the midday sun. The familiar flat cheek bones and dark eyes, but a different kind of nose. Stronger. All her features had an emphatic quality new to his experience. And she was older. Perhaps in her middle thirties. A powerfully built creature, with cascades of black hair, a heavy torrent all the way down her shoulders to her waist.
On the front of her robe, lifted high by her breasts, was a herald, an intricate design woven into the rich fabric, that rose and fell with the motion of her breathing. A wolf's head.
"You're Loris," Parsons said.
"That's right," the woman answered.
He could see why she had become the Mother Superior of the society. Why her contribution to the Soul Cube was of supreme importance. He could see it in her eyes, in the firm lines of her body, her wide forehead.
Beside her, the man shared some of her characteristics. The same coppery skin, the starkly etched nose, the mass of black hair. But with subtle, crucial differences. A mere mortal, Parsons thought. Yet even so, impressive. Two fine and handsome individuals, returning his gaze with intelligence and sympathy, alert to his needs. A high emphatic order, he decided. Their dark eyes had a depth to which he felt his own psyche respond; the strength of their personalities forced his, too, to rise to a higher level of cognition.
To him Helmar said, "Let's go inside." He indicated the gray stone building nearby. "It's cooler, and we can sit down."
As they walked up the path, Loris said, "And more private."
A collie, wagging its great tail, approached them, its elongated muzzle raised. Helmar paused to thump the dog. As they turned the corner of the building, Parsons saw descending terraces, a well-tended garden that merged with trees and wilder shrubs.
"We're quite secluded here," Loris said. "This is our Lodge. It dates back three hundred years."
In the center of an open field, Parsons saw a second time travel ship and several men at work on it.
"You may be interested in this," Loris said. Leading the way, she brought Parsons over to the ship; there she took a smooth, shiny sphere from one of the technicians. The sphere, the size of a grapefruit, lifted of its own accord from her hands; she caught hold of it at once. "It's all set to go," she said. "We're in the process of taking these into the future." She pointed; the ship had been filled with these spheres.